Hitting bottom helped Vick bounce to top

Nick Fierro, OF THE MORNING CALL

— Michael Vick's transformation as a person is a matter of perspective, because few people really know the man covered by the pads and the helmet and, again depending on various frames of reference, the luckiest or unluckiest Number 7 jersey ever.

For that matter, not too many more people really know the quarterback named Michael Vick, whose talent has always been undeniable but whose potential has always been a good deal greater than his achievements.

Michael Vick, like so many public figures, continues to be defined by so many snapshots and by-the-numbers paintings, never a portrait. That part will never change, because his credibility will forever be at least a little tarnished by a despicable past that cannot be erased.

To that end and to his credit, Vick has never tried to revise history at any point throughout his well-documented comeback with the Philadelphia Eagles. He has only tried to learn from it and seek redemption.

"I made mistakes, bad lifestyle choices," said Vick, who could suit up but might not play Sunday when the Eagles host Atlanta, his former team. "I can't change that, I know. What I can change is children who might not be doing the right things now."

And so he does, speaking at schools and rallies about the importance of recognizing and avoiding bad situations and using better sense in choosing friends. These were things Vick obviously never did all the way through childhood, into adulthood, and he wound up in federal prison for 18 months on a dogfighting conspiracy conviction as a result.

He spent two full seasons — 2007 and '08 — out of the NFL and last year with the Eagles as a part-time player trying to work himself back into football shape, getting a few snaps here and there as mostly a Wildcat quarterback, with mixed results.

Getting from last season to where he is today, as a starter again (although injured) and arguably a complete quarterback for the first time in his career, required the kind of overtime he was never interested in working in his previous incarnation with the Falcons. To head coach Andy Reid and to many others inside the NovaCare Complex, the Eagles' training facility, Vick's work ethic could not have changed until his lifestyle did.

They couldn't be more pleased by what they've seen, off the field as well as on.

"From all the feedback I get and the interactions he's had, it's a unique case of somebody who has done some really bad things being able to explain himself and being able to explain, not just with animal cruelty, but the difficulty of leaving an environment that you grew up with and trying to make a success of yourself after a tremendous failure," Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie said. "That's a message of hope and a message of redemption that does hit home for kids that are from real disadvantaged communities."

At the same time, Lurie is not sure how to quantify Vick's impact.

"That's a hard thing to measure because these are kids you're dealing with that you hope he's influencing," Lurie said. "I don't know that you can measure today ... that there's tremendous impetus for social change from that. But that gets multiplied over time. He's going to have a lot of time to keep impacting kids."

As difficult as determining Vick's community impact may always be, it is perfectly clear how he has evolved as a player whose total finally is frighteningly close to the sum of his parts.

Despite having one of the strongest and streaky accurate arms in the history of the game, Vick's career completion percentage before joining the Eagles was only 53.8, and only once — in 2002 — did he finish a season with a quarterback rating over 80 (83.8).

Vick was always a dangerous and effective running threat with the Falcons. Only he ran too often, which made hollow so many of the 3,859 yards he picked up on the ground, including an astonishing 1,039 in 2006, before joining the Eagles.

As a result, Vick was able to be stopped when it counted most, during his playoff runs in 2002 and 2004. Both times, ironically, it was at the hands of the Eagles, who cut off his scrambling and running, forcing him to stay in the pocket more than he liked at the time.

Late Eagles' defensive coordinator Jim Johnson would all but foam at the mouth in the week leading up to both games, in which Vick was never allowed to become a factor.

The Eagles won 20-6 in 2002, picking off Vick twice while limiting him to 22 completions in 38 attempts and no runs longer than 12 yards. In 2004, on their way to the Super Bowl, the Eagles held Vick to 11 completions in 24 attempts for just 136 yards on their way to a 27-10 romp.

Now Vick's decision-making is so spot-on that he almost always makes the right choices, whether it's passing or running, throwing downfield, dumping off, throwing away or breaking off scrambles to take off down the field.

This year, he is 59-of-96 for 799 yards, six touchdowns, no interceptions and a career-best quarterback rating of 108.8. His completion percentage of 61.5 is five points higher than his previous best of 56.4 in 2004.

"In the past year and couple months here, he has worked real hard at becoming the best quarterback he can be," Eagles offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg raved. "And when you add playing the quarterback position the right way with his great, exciting, dynamic type of play, then you have something there. And he's worked hard at that. There's no question he's on his way to his best year ever."

Alas, Vick's last decision to take off and run, though correct, proved to be a costly one. Vick was crushed at the goal line following a 23-yard scramble on Oct. 3 against Washington. Some chest cartilage was cracked, and he hasn't played since.

That doesn't diminish where he is now as one of the most gifted and developed players in the league, thanks to the Eagles' patience and Vick's willingness to accept backup roles to Donovan McNabb and then Kevin Kolb — who will start against the Falcons.

Vick played so well filling in for Kolb, who suffered a concussion on opening day, that Reid had no choice but to promote him to full-time starter.

"Honestly, I feel better than I ever did in my career, physically and mentally," Vick said before the injury. "I take care of my body, I prepare hard, I study hard. I try to do everything I can to make sure I can be productive for this football team when I step out onto the field. That's what's most important to me. Other than my family right now, it's football."

Jim Mora Jr., Vick's head coach in Atlanta from 2004 through '06, also sees the changes at work.

"He's much more mature, much more settled, seems obviously much more prepared," Mora said. "He was never a poor worker. He did what was asked, he was compliant. But I think he's realized that to be a top-level quarterback in this league, you have to spend extra time and a lot of extra time. And it seems to me that he's doing that, and it's reflected in his play.

"I mean, when I watch him, I see a guy who seems more mature, more poised, much more patient, still able to make plays with his legs down the field, but stays active in the pocket a little bit longer than he did back then. Talking to him, that's just a function, he says, of seeing the field better."

That could be because, for the first time in Vick's life, he's had to pay attention.

Prison opened up Vick's eyes and ears to a world he never sensed before. Now he's finally on his way to the top of it for the first time.

"I think everything that I've been through just made me a stronger individual," he said. "Just being able to deal with everything. I've been to the bottom and I'm just trying to rise like the Phoenix. If I can do that, if I can persevere throughout all of the bad things that I've been through and all of the bad places I've been to, then I think things will be OK."